This story began on Monday, March 11, at 3 pm when officers of the Santa Monica Police Department went to the 1500 block of Second Street after they had received a report of a man who was inside a restaurant and was throwing food around the restaurant, as well as threatening to kill the female manager of the eatery.
When the officers arrived they spoke with the manager who told them a man had been asked to leave the restaurant about a week prior after he had worn out his welcome by buying a single cup of coffee and staying for hours without purchasing anything else.
During that event the man had become belligerent and had yelled many profanities at the manager.
The manager also brought to the attention of the officers that on this day the man had also vandalized a city owned trash receptacle by dragging the concrete bin from the sidewalk and out into the street, causing many cracks in it as he did so.
The officers reviewed the closed circuit television recording of the inside of the restaurant and identified the suspect as a person with whom the police had experienced previous criminal incidents.
Two days later (Wednesday, March 13) the officers spotted this man in the downtown area of Santa Monica and arrested him.
This 52-year-old man of no fixed abode was charged with criminal threats and vandalism.
Bail was set at $57,000.
Editor’s Note: These reports are part of a regular police coverage series entitled “Alert Police Blotter” (APB), which injects some minor editorial into certain police activities in Santa Monica. Not all of the Mirror’s coverage of incidents involving police are portrayed in this manner. More serious crimes and police-related activities are regularly reported without editorial in the pages of the Santa Monica Mirror and its website, smmirror.com.
